Regularly updated blog charting the most important albums of the last 50 years

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

342. Bob Dylan - Blood On The Tracks (1975)

Track Listing

1. Tangled Up In Blue2. Simple Twist Of Fate3. You're A Big Girl Now4. Idiot Wind5. You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go6. Meet Me In The Morning7. Lily, Rosemary And The Jack Of Hearts8. If You See Her, Say Hello9. Shelter From The Storm10. Buckets Of Rain

Review

Oh the lovely Bob Dylan, I can understand people who are irritated by his voice, and therefore have difficulty in appreciating him. But if you have gotten used to it or even quite like it, like myself, there is very little that you can fault in this album. This is the Dylan we all know and love and this album is up there with Blonde On Blonde as one of his all time best albums.

Every single song here is as near to perfection as humanely possible. There is a marked return to Dylan's folksier days and as an album of pain and separation it feels comfortable and right to go back to his roots.

This is Dylan very much at his best and for that simple reason this is and will always be an indispensable album. It is as good as his mid-60's songs, but there is a pain and tenderness here which isn't present as much in those albums. There is actually a quest for beauty in all the pain, for some comfort and this makes it probably the best break-up album of all time. Good for Dylan, and good for all of us.

Track Highlights

1. Shelter From The Storm2. Simple Twist Of Fate3. Idiot wind4. Tangled Up In Blue

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The album, which followed several years of lukewarm reception for Dylan's work, was greeted respectably by fans and critics. In the years following its release, it has come to be regarded as one of his very best albums - making it quite common for subsequent records to be labeled his "best since Blood on the Tracks." It is also commonly seen as a standard for confessional singer-songwriter albums, though Dylan has denied that the songs are autobiographical, his son Jakob Dylan has stated: "The songs are my parents talking." Most of the lyrics on the album revolve around heartache, anger, and loneliness.

The tackiest video imaginable for Shelter From The Storm, how can someone have such poor taste?: